I would be better off in a savings account...

Thats right, it has been a horrible year for investing. I have to do my tax return in the next week and I will actually have capital gains to declare and pay tax on. But in 2008, I have a sad feeling that I'll be going back and applying my losses to those 2007 gains.

I've already told you about the big loss that I took on BMO. Right after I couldn't handle the pain anymore, BMO bounced up! While it is still below where I purchased it right now (when I sold it my average cost was $52), I started purchasing in the $60's. When it got to $38 I couldn't take it anymore.

What have I done since then? Well, I've made some good trades but never made back nearly as much as when I have a losing trade. It is very frustrating watching two winners like Visa (NYSE:V) and Yellow Pages (TSE:YLO.UN) do well for me, only to lose 3 times that amount on my Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) short.

Speaking of which, everyone assumes that AAPL is going to blow earnings out of the water on Tuesday. If thats the case, I'll probably have my first margin call and my brokerage account will be screwed! Great! However, I will have to hand it to AAPL if they do. I just do not think they can keep up this growth pace. People who buy Mac's can use them for a very long time. They've already hit the student market - those students are dishing out multiple thousands for another over priced machine. I just don't get it. Hopefully everyone is wrong about AAPL - just like they were when Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) reported earnings.

Speaking of which, I was considering buying GOOG going into earnings as a hedge against AAPL but then I thought that was a dumb idea, ugh, always on the wrong side of the trade lately!

Down but not out...

I've taken my loss on Bank of Montreal (BMO) so that I could free up some capital for the Visa (V) IPO on Wednesday. That has been pretty successful but it really hurt watching BMO fix its problems in 3 days and surge like it did! Oh well, can't dwell on that now.

Speaking of dwelling on bad decisions - after investing in Bear Sterns (BSC) on the Friday when it fell to $30/share, I was able to hold the next week until it went to $7. After that I was able to short it down to $5 and make some of my money back.

Not sure what next week holds but I'll be looking to put the rest of my capital to work and sit on it for a week while I go on vacation.

January 28, 2007 Final Results

Ended up being up $120 for the day.

AMD and YHOO shorts canceled out since they went in opposite directions.

BMO and LXK were the two big winners netting $107 profit.


Tomorrow will be interesting to see how the market reacts with the pending Fed meeting and also how YHOO moves as they are set to put out results at the close of the market tomorrow!

Wish me luck!

Panic! SELL SELL SELL!

Wow, the markets all took a big hit early and rallied in the afternoon as bargain hunters tookover. I was a little late to the game but as my Bank of Montreal (BMO.T) took a beating all week I kept saying that there is no reason that they should be hurting because of this sub-prime nonsense because they are not affected! Then today, the bounce back - up 4.5%.

The portfolio done nothing, about $600 in inherent losses built up in the portfolio. I think I read somewhere that the markets always go down in August because people move their money to the sidelines. So ideally, I should cash out some savings and dump it in the market now so that when the money comes back off the sidelines in September then I will be ahead of the curve!